I was not going to tell you yet--you always make me tell you everything, like a child." "What is it ?" asked the Greek.

"Have you found out anything new about him?
Of course you must tell me." "We hold his life in our hands," she said quietly, and Aristarchi knew that she was not exaggerating the truth.
She began to tell him how this was the third time that a number of masked men had come to the house an hour after dark, and had stayed till midnight or later, and how Contarini had told her that they came to play at dice where they were safe from interruption, and that on these nights the servants were sent to their quarters at sunset on pain of dismissal if Jacopo found them about the house, but that they also received generous presents of money to keep them silent.
"The man is a fool!" said Aristarchi again.

"He puts himself in their power." "He is much more completely in ours," answered Arisa.

"The servants believe that his friends come to play dice.

And so they do.